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Thursday, July 5, 2012

Beware Shovel Ware

It’s been a privilege to participate
in several excellent “Writing for the Web” training programs as part of
NielsenNorman Group’s Usability Week.It was there that I first heard about the term “Shovel Ware” as applied
to marketing communications content.

In terms of marketing
communications, the term “Shovel Ware” relates to marketing
content and copy that is applied from one medium to another with little thought
given to adapting it for use on the destination platform or medium, resulting
in poor quality, and low usability – which translates to a low return on
marketing investment.

Think of a printed brochure
text that is cut and paste in its entirety and stuck on a web page. Or website copy that makes it’s way
into an eNewsletter or direct mail message.

Essentially one “shovels” the
content from one platform to another.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Shovel ware tactics are economical,
but certainly not a best practice. In the example above, writing for the web
comes with its own set of guidelines and strategies, as opposed to writing a
press release or technical brochure.

From the content side, businesses often forget that web
visitors are impatient and on their own “missions” – searching, snacking for
info from a variety of sources…. they don’t want to wade through cutsie copy or
scads of content better suited to other formats.

It makes no business sense to plug in long-form printed copy
on a website, as research findings show: “On the average Web page, users have
time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more
likely.”

“Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users
are likely to be on a specific mission. In many cases, they’ve pulled up the
page through search. Web users want actionable content; they don’t want to
fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to
their current goals…”